Garrett, Seaton

ORAL HISTORY OF SEATON GARRETT
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
October 24, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is October 24, 2011, and I am at the home of Dr. Seaton Garrett. Dr. Garrett, thanks for allowing us to come in and talk to you.
DR. GARRETT: Glad to do it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about your background from the very beginning. Why don't you tell me about where you were born and raised and something about your family?
DR. GARRETT: Born in June of 1929 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The first few years lived in the city of Knoxville, and at about age 7 we moved to Knox County not very far from here over on Middlebrook Pike to a farm, and basically was raised there through high school years and on through UT at Knoxville and the pre-med program before I went to Memphis to med school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have brothers and sisters, and what did your parents do?
DR. GARRETT: I'm the oldest of three. I had a brother who died a couple of years ago and a sister who is still living.
MR. MCDANIEL: Your parents, now what did they do when you were -
DR. GARRETT: Both parents are now deceased.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did they do when you were growing up?
DR. GARRETT: My father did several things. One, he was law enforcement in Knox County at one time, and then worked for a specific part of law enforcement for the state for a number of years, and then was postmaster in Knoxville for a lot of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you grew up in Knoxville. You grew up in this area.
DR. GARRETT: I did, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were born in '29 you said?
DR. GARRETT: 1929.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1929. So you were a teenager when the war broke out or just a young teenager I guess.
DR. GARRETT: Which one?
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Well, the Great War.
DR. GARRETT: The Great War?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
DR. GARRETT: I was 12 years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
DR. GARRETT: I remember the day that we got the word.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Tell me about that.
DR. GARRETT: Well, we had a visitor for Sunday lunch, and we had walked to the back of the farm looking at things with the visitor after lunch, and on the way back, one of the ladies met us on the way back to tell us that they had heard the announcement by FDR that Pearl Harbor had been attacked and that we were at war.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So then that was December 7, 1941, wasn't it?
DR. GARRETT: Correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how did your family react? How did your parents react? Do you remember?
DR. GARRETT: Well, the visitor happened to be a young man who was in the Navy and he had just left Hawaii about two weeks before his visit with us. So he knew most of the people there -- not most, of course, but a lot of the people there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Very, very disturbed because his friends, he knew a number of them had been killed. Our family was upset, of course, and first surprised and then I guess angry then for a lot of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly. So, what was it like for you -- this is kind of a little bit of a different perspective than I've talked to people. You were in the area, but you weren't in Oak Ridge, and you were still too young to be in the service, but you were old enough to remember what was going on. So what do you remember about those years that World War II was going on and also did you hear anything about Oak Ridge?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, one of the things I remember about it -- I've lived in Knoxville all my life.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Even since I've worked in oak Ridge, I've lived and commuted, but we lived on Middlebrook Pike which turned out to be the major route for traffic going to Oak Ridge, which had always been a two-lane, not much traveled country road until that happened.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, right.
DR. GARRETT: Oak Ridge started and most of the materials that were used in building Oak Ridge came down Middlebrook Pike, so the traffic there changed dramatically.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I bet, I bet.
DR. GARRETT: It did. There was lots and lots of activity. At that time, none of the civilians in this area anyway knew what was going on, knew what was happening except that it had something to do with the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: You didn't need to ask questions because you knew it was important.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, but I bet as a 12, 13, 14-year-old you saw lots of interesting trucks go by, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: Lots, lots, and lots, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] So, I guess trucks going in and going out, I guess people too were --
DR. GARRETT: Empty coming back, loaded going in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Loaded going in and empty coming back?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, yup.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that the route that the buses took for the people?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, from Knoxville to Oak Ridge?
DR. GARRETT: Yes. Travel on Middlebrook was nothing like it had been.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. I imagine so. Someone told me that there was a bus going from Knoxville to Oak Ridge every 15 minutes, regular trips.
DR. GARRETT: Oh yes, yup, yup.
MR. MCDANIEL: So anyway, you continued on with your schooling. When you graduated high school and --
DR. GARRETT: Went to Karns High School over in Byington and then to UT in Knoxville, pre-med.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Finished up pre-med over there and went to med school in Memphis and graduated down there. Came back to do an internship at UT Hospital, which had just opened, and then did a residency in internal medicine partly at the VA hospital back in Memphis, and then back at UT Knoxville Hospital for the rest of the internal medicine residency.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So once you finished your residency, what did you do?
DR. GARRETT: Well, I went into practice in internal medicine out in Fountain City and stayed there for a little while, had a partner there. I had another partner who was coming back from service, and when he came back then is when I first went to Oak Ridge National Lab, to the medical department there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, okay, and what year was that?
DR. GARRETT: I don't remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] It probably had to be --
DR. GARRETT: Don't ask me years and names.
MR. MCDANIEL: So it had to be in the late '40s, early '50s I guess.
DR. GARRETT: No, that was in the late '50s, early '60s, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Late '50s, right, right. So, by now I imagine you were married and had a family?
DR. GARRETT: I got married when I finished up my residency. Then we got married and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Was she a local Knoxville girl?
DR. GARRETT: She's a girl from Blaine, Tennessee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: In Granger County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes, in Granger County.
DR. GARRETT: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes. So you practiced medicine in private practice.
DR. GARRETT: Private practice for a while and then the opportunity to go to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Medical Division.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, so tell me about that. Tell me how that came about and what you did when you first went there.
DR. GARRETT: Well, I had a brother-in-law who worked for DOE, and we were talking one day and he mentioned that he'd heard that there was an opening at the Health Division and thought, well that might be interesting. So I got an appointment, went through the process, and talked with Tom Lincoln, who was the Medical Director then and decided to go do occupation medicine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So occupational medicine at the Lab.
DR. GARRETT: At the Lab, right.
MR. MCDANIEL: At Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
DR. GARRETT: There I was a staff physician for a number of years until Tom decided that he would go work for Carbide in New York where headquarters was at the time. So then I became Medical Director when Tom went to New York.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do those first years? You were in occupational medicine. Tell me, typical.
DR. GARRETT: I was a staff physician. Typically, did the physical exams that were done on all employees at the time, but also saw people with their own health issues, health problems; not taking the place of their family physician, but often encouraging them to go see about whatever the problem was in order to try to keep a healthy working staff.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: I sort of felt philosophically at the time that what was good for the health of the employee was good for health of the organization. So we tried to find things early and get them fixed early so they weren't debilitating. Our goal primarily was preventative medicine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, when you first went, how big was the Medical Division? How many physicians were on staff and nurses and things such as that?
DR. GARRETT: When I went there, Tom Lincoln was Medical Director and practicing with him were Gino Zanolli, who eventually became the medical director at Y-12; Rueben Holland, who eventually moved to Union Carbide in West Virginia, and Tom. Those were the guys that were there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Then Reuben, as I say, moved to West Virginia later on. Then after I got there, Dr. David -- I've got David Sexton's name in my mind and I can't get it out, but that's not him.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] That's not him.
DR. GARRETT: [Laughter] I'll think of the name.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
DR. GARRETT: Anyway --
MR. MCDANIEL: So there was another doctor named David who came along?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
DR. GARRETT: Well, I had known him in residency, and so he came to join us. Then later on Dr. John Avera, who was an internist in Knoxville that I had known came to join us and Dr. John Sisk, who had been a surgeon came to join us. I had known John to some degree before then. That was pretty much the crew that we had most of the time that I was at the Lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: How many employees were there at the time, do you remember?
DR. GARRETT: About 5,000.
MR. MCDANIEL: About 5,000?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, as I recall. Now, that would change over time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: If there became budgetary problems at Y-12, then K-25 and ORNL would get the benefit of some transfers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
DR. GARRETT: If there was a budgetary problem at ORNL, it would work the other way and the same thing with K-25. Of course, not every time there were layoffs were we able to accommodate everybody, but when there was a need or an opportunity, then those transfers avoided layoffs at times.
MR. MCDANIEL: That seemed to be a little easier to do when Union Carbide was running everything I suppose.
DR. GARRETT: Yes, that's probably right.
MR. MCDANIEL: You said you did preventative checkups and preventative health?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, we had a routine, a regular physical exam program at that time that was aimed at trying to maintain good health by trying to catch things early, catching problems that were contributory to illnesses when they were just items of their own.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Like cholesterol; we tried to keep folks' cholesterol down and keep their blood pressure under control to reduce heart issues, that sort of approach to good health.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: But there were also specific -- that has increased a lot lately I think, specific examinations in relation to specific exposures that people have in their work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. That's what I was going to ask you about next. I was going to ask you about one, I suppose an industrial environment is one concern, but really the type of industry that was the Lab was probably something else a little more specific.
DR. GARRETT: Right. Anybody who worked with certain risky chemicals, for instance, got a focused evaluation, not just on the general health, but also specifically to those issues. If they needed to have specific respiratory testing, not just X-ray, but breathing tests and all that, they got that. If there were certain chemical exposures, then we took particular attention to the issues that might be raised by those kinds of exposures. So it was a general examination for everybody and then with specific focus on whatever the issue might be because of their occupational exposure.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, how much of the testing could you do there on site and how much of it did you have to send out for?
DR. GARRETT: Well, we did almost all of it on site because we had an in-house medical laboratory.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
DR. GARRETT: We had med techs doing our testing. While I was there, while we were there, we developed some new testing equipment based on some research work that had been done over at K-25 on the centrifugal spin process.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: So we did most of our work in house. We did X-rays in house. We had some pulmonary function. We had hearing, vision. We had an optometrist with us, so they did glasses. We had a psychologist, so that was part of not only the general health, but also the security issue.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: So we had a pretty complete in-house process.
MR. MCDANIEL: I suppose the employees like that because they could get things done at work that they otherwise might have to go somewhere else to have done, and I suppose the company liked it because you were pretty thorough with everything including the physical and psychological; so you could identify issues early on that could potentially become major issues later.
DR. GARRETT: Well, that's true. One of the things that we did, for instance, was allergy testing -- I'm sorry, not allergy testing, allergy treatment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay.
DR. GARRETT: If the person had an allergy that was an issue that needed to be treated with scratch test and injection, then we would have then go to their allergist and immunologist and be tested and the serum made up by the immunologist. Then the patient would bring that to our department and we would give the test. We would give the serum according to the allergist's instructions.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: What we did was to save two or three hours each time we did that from the work of that person. we required them, as they were required in the allergist's office, to stay for a period of time, usually half an hour or so after each one so we were sure they weren't going to get a reaction to it. That saved the travel time most of the time to Knoxville and at least at other times to Oak Ridge and to wait in the office there and then return back. So we saved quite a bit of work time by doing that on site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh absolutely, and I imagine a lot of people had allergy shots at least once or twice a week.
DR. GARRETT: Quite a few.
MR. MCDANIEL: Quite a few.
DR. GARRETT: Quite a few.
MR. MCDANIEL: So that saved a lot of time for people to get their shots there.
DR. GARRETT: They did that at K-25 and I think at Y-12.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
DR. GARRETT: I know they did at K-25 quite a bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was there anything in particular that was unique -- I know you talked a little bit about testing for certain exposures. Was there anything that kind of surprised you or you came across during the course of your career there that -- I don't want to say alarmed you, but maybe made you focus a little bit more on a specific exposure, a specific chemical, things such as that?
DR. GARRETT: Well, after being there the time that I was there and while I was there, I was seeing that the people who worked there have the same illnesses and the same kind of disease problems, the same accidents that everybody has everywhere, whether they work anywhere or everywhere.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, right.
DR. GARRETT: So it was not unique in that sense, and so we were primarily focused on major health problems with heart disease. Others, we tried to get folks to quit smoking for a number of years. So there was that general approach. In addition to that, because of Oak Ridge's work in radiation-related issues, that was new to me when I came to the Lab. So I had a lot of learning to do about the consequences of radiation exposure. Now, I didn't have a lot of experience in that because the Safety Department and the Health Physics Departments were very effective in minimizing worker's radiation exposures. In my view, did a good job, so we didn't often have severe clinical results from exposures.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. That's what I was going to ask. I was going to ask you a little bit about the Health Physics Department. Did you work closely with the Health Physics Department or did they kind of do their own thing?
DR. GARRETT: No, we were separate divisions, but there were two parts, as I recall to the Health Physics Division. One was the everyday operation of Health Physics as a safety issue.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: The other was the research end of health physics. Now, they worked together, but they were really kind of separate within that division, I think.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, ORINS, was it operational when you first went there? Was the hospital still there?
DR. GARRETT: The hospital was there and still active with patients at first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Yes, it was an interesting place. I didn't work there at that time, so I didn't know a lot about it. I did know some of the people. I knew Gould Andrews, for instance, a great physician there, real nice person. Then later on I knew the director, Clarence Lushbaugh, who was one of the early RE/ACTS directors, a pathologist. Really, a different soul. He was a good guy. I did his physicals when ORNL was still doing ORAU's physicals. I saw him with some frequency for his exams. We also, for a long time, did the physicals for the DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
DR. GARRETT: We did. So we were doing all three organizations for quite a while.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. What was different about working there versus working private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Versus what?
MR. MCDANIEL: Working private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Oh, regular hours [Laughter] most of the time. There were occasions when we came in after hours, and we were on-call, rotated call just like you do at any medical practice, but we didn't have a lot of evening or night work; only occasionally. In private practice, night call was more frequent and we got called out more often.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
DR. GARRETT: And reliable time off was a nice - I wasn't used to that either. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet, I bet. Now, was there ever an occasion that you would be called in to consult on a patient from a personal physician because of the unique situation? Do you remember anything like that?
DR. GARRETT: We were in touch with a number of personal physicians. For me, a lot of that was time when we would have people off with illness and the private physician needed to know our perspective of bringing that person back, and what kind of work restrictions we might be able to apply in order to get the person back before they would be able to come back to full duty on whatever their job might be.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: For instance, if someone was off with a back problem, which was fairly common as it always is, not just there but everywhere, then we had the option and were able to explain to the family physician that we could bring the patient back to other work or non-lifting portion of their job until they were ready for full duty activity.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, and I imagine you saw everyone; I mean from the laborers and janitorial staff up to the top tier of management, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: We did, and as a matter of fact our philosophy was that we did the same thorough exam and content of evaluation to everybody from the director to the person that was -- you mentioned the janitors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody in between got the same kind of preventative medicine approach to their evaluations and the same kind of willingness to see folks for their illness.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: I've got to make it clear. For their illness, we did, but that was in large part to evaluate as to whether or not it was something serious enough that they needed to go see their surgeon or their family physician.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Whether the breast lump in the lady was there and needed attention, that sort of thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Tell me a little bit about the building. Tell me a little bit about your facility there. Where were you located?
DR. GARRETT: We were in 4500 North, and it was a good, nice facility.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that one of those yellow brick --
DR. GARRETT: I'm sorry?
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that was one of those yellow brick buildings?
DR. GARRETT: It was the first brick building as you went in the East Portal, the main portal in the east -- not the East Work Portal.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, the Main Portal on the east.
DR. GARRETT: It was in that first wing of 4500 North. There was the Personnel Division was the first section of that “L” and then Health Division was in that same wing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I see, I see. As you said, you had your own lab, so it was pretty well supplied.
DR. GARRETT: Yes. We had the reception area with all of the charts, medical charts, and then the doctor's offices and secretary's offices on the other. It was divided down, and in the middle was X-ray and lab so that there were two wings to it. On the west side there was a little kitchen. Most folks ate there, but sometimes we went to -- the kitchen was about six feet long and four feet wide I guess or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Then the psychologist's office was over on that side, and then the optician's office was on that side, and then --
MR. MCDANIEL: So it was just like any kind of normal medical facility, doctor's office, right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, yes, pretty much. The doctor's offices were down the main corridor along with X-ray and lab off to the right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, exactly. So did you spend much time in Oak Ridge during your work time out there?
DR. GARRETT: No, I commuted every day. As a matter of fact, for most years I was in carpool.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes. My carpool members were very tolerant because I was always late getting out in the afternoon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay.
DR. GARRETT: Yes. We had a carpool that was together for 20 years I guess, same guys.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, everyone worked at the Lab, I suppose?
DR. GARRETT: We did, yes, around the same hours basically. I liked getting there early and the others were willing to. You could get more done before 8:00 than you could after because the phone didn't ring and the patients weren't there, and you could get a lot of the paperwork finished.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Speaking of paperwork, was there anything unique specifically about working there that you encountered as far as paperwork and regulations and things such as that that you didn't have in private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Oh yes. There were at least two bureaucracies stacked on top of each other. The Department of Energy's requirements, rules, regulations, and the standards and then there was the contractor's requirements added to that. So you had to pay attention to at least two sets of rules in the general operation, although for the most part neither of those organizations interfered in the doctor/patient relationship.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: They were careful not to do that, but of course, they had rules and regulations about what could and couldn't be done, what should and shouldn't be done.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, were you pretty autonomous or did you occasionally have pressure from higher up to say a certain thing? I can't imagine them telling you how to diagnose something, but maybe how to present certain things?
DR. GARRETT: No, I don't remember having anybody try to -- you understood the operation of the organization and stayed within those bounds in general; but those things really didn't, to my knowledge, interfere with the doctor's care for the patient.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
DR. GARRETT: The patient was an employee, but that was not a significant impediment or impairment at all in the medical care of the individual.
MR. MCDANIEL: What else have I not asked you about that's of interest, that would be of interest about your work there?
DR. GARRETT: Well, it was, I think, to some degree a unique patient population for the medical department because you were dealing with some really outstanding scientific people, brilliant folks, all of them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: That brilliance didn't always carry over into every aspect of life.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right, as is commonplace.
DR. GARRETT: Well, it doesn't for anybody.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody has their own orientation to life, but they were interesting people, people with sort of a unique approach to life, but brilliant, brilliant folks -- folks who many of them -- well, not many, some of them who worked better by themselves.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Not very conducive to group activity, but brilliant in their own field. Others were really good at getting -- and Dr. Weinberg was one of the ones who encouraged people with different capacities, different interests getting together on a project and really making a difference in the progression of that project because the people with a different orientation would come with unique ideas from each other, fit them together, and make the project really work well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me -- let's talk just a minute since you mentioned Dr. Weinberg. How well did you know him and what was he like? I'll tell you the reason why is I'm doing a project right now on Dr. Weinberg's life, a biography, a video documentary biography of him. So, what was your perception of Dr. Weinberg?
DR. GARRETT: Alvin was a brilliant person. He was one of the two people that I've known in my life who could go straight to the heart of the issue; no matter how much cloud there was around it, no matter how many issues there were around the issue, he could ask the one question that was most important in getting to the heart of the problem. Just a really smart, really good guy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm.
DR. GARRETT: My impression was also that Alvin did well in his relationship with the politicians of the world, the folks in Washington. I think they respected him and as far as I knew he did well. So, he was good scientifically of course, and he also was good organizationally. So he was an unusual man and the man for the job at the time as far as I could tell.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Getting back to your patient population -- today, people they get an ache and they'll go on the internet and try to find out what it was. This was obviously before the internet, but you had smart people. I'm sure many of them would do a little bit of research. Would they come in telling you what was wrong with them?
DR. GARRETT: [Laughter] Very often and they'd tell me what was wrong with some of their co-workers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, we had a few wannabe physicians, and that was not a problem.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody would like to know what their problem is before they find out what their problem is. So, yes we had folks that they were smart people. Most of them didn't have the medical training background; otherwise, they'd have been good docs too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm, right, right. So you stayed at the Lab until you retired. Is that correct?
DR. GARRETT: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you retire, what year?
DR. GARRETT: 16 years ago I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: 16, so --
DR. GARRETT: 16, 17 years ago.
MR. MCDANIEL: So it would be --
DR. GARRETT: '95.
MR. MCDANIEL: '95, '95, and when you --
DR. GARRETT: I jumped through the window that they offered.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? [Laughter]
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was one of those situations?
DR. GARRETT: Well, they offered retirement and so I took that opportunity.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. What have you been doing since you retired?
DR. GARRETT: Working at ORAU.
MR. MCDANIEL: Have you? Well, tell me about that?
DR. GARRETT: Well, some.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Tom Lincoln used to lecture at ORAU, for the RE/ACTS classes. When he left, they asked me to fill that slot, to come and lecture to their classes and so I did. While I was still at the Lab I did that with their classes, and then after I retired, they asked me to come as a consultant, and I did for a little while, and then became a part time employee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
DR. GARRETT: Still go to lecture to their radiation emergency medicine classes that they have periodically.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: So it's enough to stay in touch. Even now as part time I am there once a week at least, and we only have two full time physicians at RE/ACT now, so one of them left two or three years ago -- shame on him -- to take a job in Hawaii. Can you imagine?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
DR. GARRETT: It left them with two full time physicians, so we get a lot of out of town, out of country training. When both of them happen to be out of town training, so I keep the home fires burning while they are gone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: But most of the time at least one of them is in town. I am there at least once or twice a week to sort of stay in touch and see what's going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, when you said you lecture, what do you lecture about?
DR. GARRETT: Well, what they have is two or three different kinds of classes. One is for EMTs. That's about a day and a half or two day. Then they have some of it called Radiation Emergency Medicine, which is a basic orientation to the medical aspects of radiation, contamination, and radiation exposure, the management of radiation exposure damage illness. Then they have one -- no, they have two a year of the advanced for physicians who have already attended the REM course; a much more involved, detailed lecture that lasts about a 5 day stay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Then, of course, they have a health physics course. So they have a fair number of courses in the course of a year among all of those. The thing that I talk about most is internal contamination and the approach in trying to deal with radiation that has found its way inside the body, however it did that, through inhalation or ingestion or wound contamination or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, you said when you first went there, you didn't have a lot of training in radiation medicine.
DR. GARRETT: Oh, I had not. When I first became staff physician over at ORNL, radiation was -- other than X-rays -- pretty new to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but I bet you had an opportunity to learn a lot while you were there about it, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: At the Lab, yes I did. I did. I took courses and did a fair amount of training and then, of course, had the issues at work to try to be sure I had some awareness of because what it might have to do with the health of the individual. So, that's where and when I learned most of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really, kind of your career there kind of correlated to the industry as far as what was becoming known about radiation and the effects and things such as that as well. Well, let me ask you, did you have any major exposure, radiation exposure issues that you had to deal with that was on site there at the Lab?
DR. GARRETT: There were some incidents where there were unintended -- not releases, but unintended escape of some radiation into, for instance, one was an escape of some material. It always happens on a weekend, of course, and this one did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
DR. GARRETT: We got into some water that was contained, but it was water that because of a big rain that happened on that weekend, it was a contamination problem for the health physicists and the folks cleaning it up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: We didn't have any medical issues out of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: There was another when one of the reactor mote areas -- there was some concern about whether or not two or three people had been exposed. It turned out they had not, not clinically significantly.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: I don't remember any serious clinically significant exposures. It was a huge, of course, problem with the health physicists trying to keep everybody badged and doing all the testing of the badging and being sure all the procedures were followed in order to avoid that. But they were very good at it, so we didn't have any serious radiation health issues that I recall at the moment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, this has been really interesting to hear about your life as a physician out there at the Lab. Is there anything that I have not asked you that you want to talk about, anything that you think is important?
DR. GARRETT: Oh, there are things that you haven't asked me that I don't want to talk about. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I understand that.
DR. GARRETT: No, no, I'm kidding about that. No, I don't think so. It was an interesting and a different kind of medical practice that I enjoyed. It was an interesting life to be in touch with brilliant folks and understand at least some of their work. So it was an interesting place to work and a congenial place to work. As far as I knew there were not any major confrontations of any general nature. Of course, there were occasional personal things, but that's because there were people there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. [Laughter] That's kind of like I have a friend of mine who is a pastor. He says, "You know, the ministry would be a pretty good job if you didn't have to deal with all those people." [Laughter]
DR. GARRETT: Didn't have to mess with the people, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess medicine would kind of be the same way, wouldn't it?
DR. GARRETT: Well, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting if you didn't have the people. It would be less interesting if you didn't have the people to work with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: That's the most interesting part and the most challenging.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. So you felt like you made the right -- looking back, you felt like you made the right choice when you decided to leave private practice and go there?
DR. GARRETT: I did. I had regularly time to spend with the family that I would not have had in private practice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: So that was a major plus in generally having the regular hours so that I could plan to do things with family, that in private practice that's much more difficult to and much more interrupted than mine. So, I got to spend some time with my boys when they were doing little league baseball and football and grasshopper football, my daughter when she was doing community competitive swimming. So, I really got to spend some family time that I enjoyed and I'm glad I had, aside from the challenging and the interesting work that I had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, thank you sir. I appreciate you taking time to talk with us.
DR. GARRETT: You're welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, very good.
[End of Interview]

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

ORAL HISTORY OF SEATON GARRETT
Interviewed by Keith McDaniel
October 24, 2011
MR. MCDANIEL: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is October 24, 2011, and I am at the home of Dr. Seaton Garrett. Dr. Garrett, thanks for allowing us to come in and talk to you.
DR. GARRETT: Glad to do it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me a little bit about your background from the very beginning. Why don't you tell me about where you were born and raised and something about your family?
DR. GARRETT: Born in June of 1929 in Knoxville, Tennessee. The first few years lived in the city of Knoxville, and at about age 7 we moved to Knox County not very far from here over on Middlebrook Pike to a farm, and basically was raised there through high school years and on through UT at Knoxville and the pre-med program before I went to Memphis to med school.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, did you have brothers and sisters, and what did your parents do?
DR. GARRETT: I'm the oldest of three. I had a brother who died a couple of years ago and a sister who is still living.
MR. MCDANIEL: Your parents, now what did they do when you were -
DR. GARRETT: Both parents are now deceased.
MR. MCDANIEL: What did they do when you were growing up?
DR. GARRETT: My father did several things. One, he was law enforcement in Knox County at one time, and then worked for a specific part of law enforcement for the state for a number of years, and then was postmaster in Knoxville for a lot of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Mm-hmm.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you grew up in Knoxville. You grew up in this area.
DR. GARRETT: I did, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: So you were born in '29 you said?
DR. GARRETT: 1929.
MR. MCDANIEL: 1929. So you were a teenager when the war broke out or just a young teenager I guess.
DR. GARRETT: Which one?
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Well, the Great War.
DR. GARRETT: The Great War?
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
DR. GARRETT: I was 12 years old.
MR. MCDANIEL: Uh-huh.
DR. GARRETT: I remember the day that we got the word.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? Tell me about that.
DR. GARRETT: Well, we had a visitor for Sunday lunch, and we had walked to the back of the farm looking at things with the visitor after lunch, and on the way back, one of the ladies met us on the way back to tell us that they had heard the announcement by FDR that Pearl Harbor had been attacked and that we were at war.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right? So then that was December 7, 1941, wasn't it?
DR. GARRETT: Correct.
MR. MCDANIEL: So, how did your family react? How did your parents react? Do you remember?
DR. GARRETT: Well, the visitor happened to be a young man who was in the Navy and he had just left Hawaii about two weeks before his visit with us. So he knew most of the people there -- not most, of course, but a lot of the people there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Very, very disturbed because his friends, he knew a number of them had been killed. Our family was upset, of course, and first surprised and then I guess angry then for a lot of years.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, exactly. So, what was it like for you -- this is kind of a little bit of a different perspective than I've talked to people. You were in the area, but you weren't in Oak Ridge, and you were still too young to be in the service, but you were old enough to remember what was going on. So what do you remember about those years that World War II was going on and also did you hear anything about Oak Ridge?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, one of the things I remember about it -- I've lived in Knoxville all my life.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Even since I've worked in oak Ridge, I've lived and commuted, but we lived on Middlebrook Pike which turned out to be the major route for traffic going to Oak Ridge, which had always been a two-lane, not much traveled country road until that happened.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, right.
DR. GARRETT: Oak Ridge started and most of the materials that were used in building Oak Ridge came down Middlebrook Pike, so the traffic there changed dramatically.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I bet, I bet.
DR. GARRETT: It did. There was lots and lots of activity. At that time, none of the civilians in this area anyway knew what was going on, knew what was happening except that it had something to do with the war.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: You didn't need to ask questions because you knew it was important.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, but I bet as a 12, 13, 14-year-old you saw lots of interesting trucks go by, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: Lots, lots, and lots, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] So, I guess trucks going in and going out, I guess people too were --
DR. GARRETT: Empty coming back, loaded going in.
MR. MCDANIEL: Loaded going in and empty coming back?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, yup.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that the route that the buses took for the people?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, from Knoxville to Oak Ridge?
DR. GARRETT: Yes. Travel on Middlebrook was nothing like it had been.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. I imagine so. Someone told me that there was a bus going from Knoxville to Oak Ridge every 15 minutes, regular trips.
DR. GARRETT: Oh yes, yup, yup.
MR. MCDANIEL: So anyway, you continued on with your schooling. When you graduated high school and --
DR. GARRETT: Went to Karns High School over in Byington and then to UT in Knoxville, pre-med.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Finished up pre-med over there and went to med school in Memphis and graduated down there. Came back to do an internship at UT Hospital, which had just opened, and then did a residency in internal medicine partly at the VA hospital back in Memphis, and then back at UT Knoxville Hospital for the rest of the internal medicine residency.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. So once you finished your residency, what did you do?
DR. GARRETT: Well, I went into practice in internal medicine out in Fountain City and stayed there for a little while, had a partner there. I had another partner who was coming back from service, and when he came back then is when I first went to Oak Ridge National Lab, to the medical department there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, okay, and what year was that?
DR. GARRETT: I don't remember.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] It probably had to be --
DR. GARRETT: Don't ask me years and names.
MR. MCDANIEL: So it had to be in the late '40s, early '50s I guess.
DR. GARRETT: No, that was in the late '50s, early '60s, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Late '50s, right, right. So, by now I imagine you were married and had a family?
DR. GARRETT: I got married when I finished up my residency. Then we got married and --
MR. MCDANIEL: Was she a local Knoxville girl?
DR. GARRETT: She's a girl from Blaine, Tennessee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: In Granger County.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes, in Granger County.
DR. GARRETT: Right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes. So you practiced medicine in private practice.
DR. GARRETT: Private practice for a while and then the opportunity to go to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the Medical Division.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, so tell me about that. Tell me how that came about and what you did when you first went there.
DR. GARRETT: Well, I had a brother-in-law who worked for DOE, and we were talking one day and he mentioned that he'd heard that there was an opening at the Health Division and thought, well that might be interesting. So I got an appointment, went through the process, and talked with Tom Lincoln, who was the Medical Director then and decided to go do occupation medicine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay. So occupational medicine at the Lab.
DR. GARRETT: At the Lab, right.
MR. MCDANIEL: At Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
DR. GARRETT: There I was a staff physician for a number of years until Tom decided that he would go work for Carbide in New York where headquarters was at the time. So then I became Medical Director when Tom went to New York.
MR. MCDANIEL: So what did you do those first years? You were in occupational medicine. Tell me, typical.
DR. GARRETT: I was a staff physician. Typically, did the physical exams that were done on all employees at the time, but also saw people with their own health issues, health problems; not taking the place of their family physician, but often encouraging them to go see about whatever the problem was in order to try to keep a healthy working staff.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: I sort of felt philosophically at the time that what was good for the health of the employee was good for health of the organization. So we tried to find things early and get them fixed early so they weren't debilitating. Our goal primarily was preventative medicine.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Now, when you first went, how big was the Medical Division? How many physicians were on staff and nurses and things such as that?
DR. GARRETT: When I went there, Tom Lincoln was Medical Director and practicing with him were Gino Zanolli, who eventually became the medical director at Y-12; Rueben Holland, who eventually moved to Union Carbide in West Virginia, and Tom. Those were the guys that were there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Then Reuben, as I say, moved to West Virginia later on. Then after I got there, Dr. David -- I've got David Sexton's name in my mind and I can't get it out, but that's not him.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] That's not him.
DR. GARRETT: [Laughter] I'll think of the name.
MR. MCDANIEL: That's okay.
DR. GARRETT: Anyway --
MR. MCDANIEL: So there was another doctor named David who came along?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Yes.
DR. GARRETT: Well, I had known him in residency, and so he came to join us. Then later on Dr. John Avera, who was an internist in Knoxville that I had known came to join us and Dr. John Sisk, who had been a surgeon came to join us. I had known John to some degree before then. That was pretty much the crew that we had most of the time that I was at the Lab.
MR. MCDANIEL: How many employees were there at the time, do you remember?
DR. GARRETT: About 5,000.
MR. MCDANIEL: About 5,000?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, as I recall. Now, that would change over time.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: If there became budgetary problems at Y-12, then K-25 and ORNL would get the benefit of some transfers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, exactly.
DR. GARRETT: If there was a budgetary problem at ORNL, it would work the other way and the same thing with K-25. Of course, not every time there were layoffs were we able to accommodate everybody, but when there was a need or an opportunity, then those transfers avoided layoffs at times.
MR. MCDANIEL: That seemed to be a little easier to do when Union Carbide was running everything I suppose.
DR. GARRETT: Yes, that's probably right.
MR. MCDANIEL: You said you did preventative checkups and preventative health?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, we had a routine, a regular physical exam program at that time that was aimed at trying to maintain good health by trying to catch things early, catching problems that were contributory to illnesses when they were just items of their own.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Like cholesterol; we tried to keep folks' cholesterol down and keep their blood pressure under control to reduce heart issues, that sort of approach to good health.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: But there were also specific -- that has increased a lot lately I think, specific examinations in relation to specific exposures that people have in their work.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. That's what I was going to ask you about next. I was going to ask you about one, I suppose an industrial environment is one concern, but really the type of industry that was the Lab was probably something else a little more specific.
DR. GARRETT: Right. Anybody who worked with certain risky chemicals, for instance, got a focused evaluation, not just on the general health, but also specifically to those issues. If they needed to have specific respiratory testing, not just X-ray, but breathing tests and all that, they got that. If there were certain chemical exposures, then we took particular attention to the issues that might be raised by those kinds of exposures. So it was a general examination for everybody and then with specific focus on whatever the issue might be because of their occupational exposure.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Now, how much of the testing could you do there on site and how much of it did you have to send out for?
DR. GARRETT: Well, we did almost all of it on site because we had an in-house medical laboratory.
MR. MCDANIEL: Did you?
DR. GARRETT: We had med techs doing our testing. While I was there, while we were there, we developed some new testing equipment based on some research work that had been done over at K-25 on the centrifugal spin process.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: So we did most of our work in house. We did X-rays in house. We had some pulmonary function. We had hearing, vision. We had an optometrist with us, so they did glasses. We had a psychologist, so that was part of not only the general health, but also the security issue.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: So we had a pretty complete in-house process.
MR. MCDANIEL: I suppose the employees like that because they could get things done at work that they otherwise might have to go somewhere else to have done, and I suppose the company liked it because you were pretty thorough with everything including the physical and psychological; so you could identify issues early on that could potentially become major issues later.
DR. GARRETT: Well, that's true. One of the things that we did, for instance, was allergy testing -- I'm sorry, not allergy testing, allergy treatment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay.
DR. GARRETT: If the person had an allergy that was an issue that needed to be treated with scratch test and injection, then we would have then go to their allergist and immunologist and be tested and the serum made up by the immunologist. Then the patient would bring that to our department and we would give the test. We would give the serum according to the allergist's instructions.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: What we did was to save two or three hours each time we did that from the work of that person. we required them, as they were required in the allergist's office, to stay for a period of time, usually half an hour or so after each one so we were sure they weren't going to get a reaction to it. That saved the travel time most of the time to Knoxville and at least at other times to Oak Ridge and to wait in the office there and then return back. So we saved quite a bit of work time by doing that on site.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh absolutely, and I imagine a lot of people had allergy shots at least once or twice a week.
DR. GARRETT: Quite a few.
MR. MCDANIEL: Quite a few.
DR. GARRETT: Quite a few.
MR. MCDANIEL: So that saved a lot of time for people to get their shots there.
DR. GARRETT: They did that at K-25 and I think at Y-12.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
DR. GARRETT: I know they did at K-25 quite a bit.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was there anything in particular that was unique -- I know you talked a little bit about testing for certain exposures. Was there anything that kind of surprised you or you came across during the course of your career there that -- I don't want to say alarmed you, but maybe made you focus a little bit more on a specific exposure, a specific chemical, things such as that?
DR. GARRETT: Well, after being there the time that I was there and while I was there, I was seeing that the people who worked there have the same illnesses and the same kind of disease problems, the same accidents that everybody has everywhere, whether they work anywhere or everywhere.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, right.
DR. GARRETT: So it was not unique in that sense, and so we were primarily focused on major health problems with heart disease. Others, we tried to get folks to quit smoking for a number of years. So there was that general approach. In addition to that, because of Oak Ridge's work in radiation-related issues, that was new to me when I came to the Lab. So I had a lot of learning to do about the consequences of radiation exposure. Now, I didn't have a lot of experience in that because the Safety Department and the Health Physics Departments were very effective in minimizing worker's radiation exposures. In my view, did a good job, so we didn't often have severe clinical results from exposures.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. That's what I was going to ask. I was going to ask you a little bit about the Health Physics Department. Did you work closely with the Health Physics Department or did they kind of do their own thing?
DR. GARRETT: No, we were separate divisions, but there were two parts, as I recall to the Health Physics Division. One was the everyday operation of Health Physics as a safety issue.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: The other was the research end of health physics. Now, they worked together, but they were really kind of separate within that division, I think.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, ORINS, was it operational when you first went there? Was the hospital still there?
DR. GARRETT: The hospital was there and still active with patients at first.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Yes, it was an interesting place. I didn't work there at that time, so I didn't know a lot about it. I did know some of the people. I knew Gould Andrews, for instance, a great physician there, real nice person. Then later on I knew the director, Clarence Lushbaugh, who was one of the early RE/ACTS directors, a pathologist. Really, a different soul. He was a good guy. I did his physicals when ORNL was still doing ORAU's physicals. I saw him with some frequency for his exams. We also, for a long time, did the physicals for the DOE.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, did you?
DR. GARRETT: We did. So we were doing all three organizations for quite a while.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right. What was different about working there versus working private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Versus what?
MR. MCDANIEL: Working private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Oh, regular hours [Laughter] most of the time. There were occasions when we came in after hours, and we were on-call, rotated call just like you do at any medical practice, but we didn't have a lot of evening or night work; only occasionally. In private practice, night call was more frequent and we got called out more often.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure, I understand.
DR. GARRETT: And reliable time off was a nice - I wasn't used to that either. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: I bet, I bet. Now, was there ever an occasion that you would be called in to consult on a patient from a personal physician because of the unique situation? Do you remember anything like that?
DR. GARRETT: We were in touch with a number of personal physicians. For me, a lot of that was time when we would have people off with illness and the private physician needed to know our perspective of bringing that person back, and what kind of work restrictions we might be able to apply in order to get the person back before they would be able to come back to full duty on whatever their job might be.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: For instance, if someone was off with a back problem, which was fairly common as it always is, not just there but everywhere, then we had the option and were able to explain to the family physician that we could bring the patient back to other work or non-lifting portion of their job until they were ready for full duty activity.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, and I imagine you saw everyone; I mean from the laborers and janitorial staff up to the top tier of management, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: We did, and as a matter of fact our philosophy was that we did the same thorough exam and content of evaluation to everybody from the director to the person that was -- you mentioned the janitors.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody in between got the same kind of preventative medicine approach to their evaluations and the same kind of willingness to see folks for their illness.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: I've got to make it clear. For their illness, we did, but that was in large part to evaluate as to whether or not it was something serious enough that they needed to go see their surgeon or their family physician.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Whether the breast lump in the lady was there and needed attention, that sort of thing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Tell me a little bit about the building. Tell me a little bit about your facility there. Where were you located?
DR. GARRETT: We were in 4500 North, and it was a good, nice facility.
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that one of those yellow brick --
DR. GARRETT: I'm sorry?
MR. MCDANIEL: Was that was one of those yellow brick buildings?
DR. GARRETT: It was the first brick building as you went in the East Portal, the main portal in the east -- not the East Work Portal.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, the Main Portal on the east.
DR. GARRETT: It was in that first wing of 4500 North. There was the Personnel Division was the first section of that “L” and then Health Division was in that same wing.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh I see, I see. As you said, you had your own lab, so it was pretty well supplied.
DR. GARRETT: Yes. We had the reception area with all of the charts, medical charts, and then the doctor's offices and secretary's offices on the other. It was divided down, and in the middle was X-ray and lab so that there were two wings to it. On the west side there was a little kitchen. Most folks ate there, but sometimes we went to -- the kitchen was about six feet long and four feet wide I guess or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Then the psychologist's office was over on that side, and then the optician's office was on that side, and then --
MR. MCDANIEL: So it was just like any kind of normal medical facility, doctor's office, right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, yes, pretty much. The doctor's offices were down the main corridor along with X-ray and lab off to the right.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, exactly. So did you spend much time in Oak Ridge during your work time out there?
DR. GARRETT: No, I commuted every day. As a matter of fact, for most years I was in carpool.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes. My carpool members were very tolerant because I was always late getting out in the afternoon.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh okay.
DR. GARRETT: Yes. We had a carpool that was together for 20 years I guess, same guys.
MR. MCDANIEL: Is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, everyone worked at the Lab, I suppose?
DR. GARRETT: We did, yes, around the same hours basically. I liked getting there early and the others were willing to. You could get more done before 8:00 than you could after because the phone didn't ring and the patients weren't there, and you could get a lot of the paperwork finished.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure. Speaking of paperwork, was there anything unique specifically about working there that you encountered as far as paperwork and regulations and things such as that that you didn't have in private practice?
DR. GARRETT: Oh yes. There were at least two bureaucracies stacked on top of each other. The Department of Energy's requirements, rules, regulations, and the standards and then there was the contractor's requirements added to that. So you had to pay attention to at least two sets of rules in the general operation, although for the most part neither of those organizations interfered in the doctor/patient relationship.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: They were careful not to do that, but of course, they had rules and regulations about what could and couldn't be done, what should and shouldn't be done.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, that's what I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you, were you pretty autonomous or did you occasionally have pressure from higher up to say a certain thing? I can't imagine them telling you how to diagnose something, but maybe how to present certain things?
DR. GARRETT: No, I don't remember having anybody try to -- you understood the operation of the organization and stayed within those bounds in general; but those things really didn't, to my knowledge, interfere with the doctor's care for the patient.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
DR. GARRETT: The patient was an employee, but that was not a significant impediment or impairment at all in the medical care of the individual.
MR. MCDANIEL: What else have I not asked you about that's of interest, that would be of interest about your work there?
DR. GARRETT: Well, it was, I think, to some degree a unique patient population for the medical department because you were dealing with some really outstanding scientific people, brilliant folks, all of them.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: That brilliance didn't always carry over into every aspect of life.
MR. MCDANIEL: [Laughter] Right, as is commonplace.
DR. GARRETT: Well, it doesn't for anybody.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody has their own orientation to life, but they were interesting people, people with sort of a unique approach to life, but brilliant, brilliant folks -- folks who many of them -- well, not many, some of them who worked better by themselves.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Not very conducive to group activity, but brilliant in their own field. Others were really good at getting -- and Dr. Weinberg was one of the ones who encouraged people with different capacities, different interests getting together on a project and really making a difference in the progression of that project because the people with a different orientation would come with unique ideas from each other, fit them together, and make the project really work well.
MR. MCDANIEL: Tell me -- let's talk just a minute since you mentioned Dr. Weinberg. How well did you know him and what was he like? I'll tell you the reason why is I'm doing a project right now on Dr. Weinberg's life, a biography, a video documentary biography of him. So, what was your perception of Dr. Weinberg?
DR. GARRETT: Alvin was a brilliant person. He was one of the two people that I've known in my life who could go straight to the heart of the issue; no matter how much cloud there was around it, no matter how many issues there were around the issue, he could ask the one question that was most important in getting to the heart of the problem. Just a really smart, really good guy.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm.
DR. GARRETT: My impression was also that Alvin did well in his relationship with the politicians of the world, the folks in Washington. I think they respected him and as far as I knew he did well. So, he was good scientifically of course, and he also was good organizationally. So he was an unusual man and the man for the job at the time as far as I could tell.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right. Getting back to your patient population -- today, people they get an ache and they'll go on the internet and try to find out what it was. This was obviously before the internet, but you had smart people. I'm sure many of them would do a little bit of research. Would they come in telling you what was wrong with them?
DR. GARRETT: [Laughter] Very often and they'd tell me what was wrong with some of their co-workers.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right?
DR. GARRETT: Yes, we had a few wannabe physicians, and that was not a problem.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure.
DR. GARRETT: Everybody would like to know what their problem is before they find out what their problem is. So, yes we had folks that they were smart people. Most of them didn't have the medical training background; otherwise, they'd have been good docs too.
MR. MCDANIEL: Mm-hmm, right, right. So you stayed at the Lab until you retired. Is that correct?
DR. GARRETT: I did.
MR. MCDANIEL: When did you retire, what year?
DR. GARRETT: 16 years ago I guess.
MR. MCDANIEL: 16, so --
DR. GARRETT: 16, 17 years ago.
MR. MCDANIEL: So it would be --
DR. GARRETT: '95.
MR. MCDANIEL: '95, '95, and when you --
DR. GARRETT: I jumped through the window that they offered.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, is that right? [Laughter]
DR. GARRETT: Yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: That was one of those situations?
DR. GARRETT: Well, they offered retirement and so I took that opportunity.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right, right. What have you been doing since you retired?
DR. GARRETT: Working at ORAU.
MR. MCDANIEL: Have you? Well, tell me about that?
DR. GARRETT: Well, some.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: Tom Lincoln used to lecture at ORAU, for the RE/ACTS classes. When he left, they asked me to fill that slot, to come and lecture to their classes and so I did. While I was still at the Lab I did that with their classes, and then after I retired, they asked me to come as a consultant, and I did for a little while, and then became a part time employee.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay.
DR. GARRETT: Still go to lecture to their radiation emergency medicine classes that they have periodically.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: So it's enough to stay in touch. Even now as part time I am there once a week at least, and we only have two full time physicians at RE/ACT now, so one of them left two or three years ago -- shame on him -- to take a job in Hawaii. Can you imagine?
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh my.
DR. GARRETT: It left them with two full time physicians, so we get a lot of out of town, out of country training. When both of them happen to be out of town training, so I keep the home fires burning while they are gone.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: But most of the time at least one of them is in town. I am there at least once or twice a week to sort of stay in touch and see what's going on.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, when you said you lecture, what do you lecture about?
DR. GARRETT: Well, what they have is two or three different kinds of classes. One is for EMTs. That's about a day and a half or two day. Then they have some of it called Radiation Emergency Medicine, which is a basic orientation to the medical aspects of radiation, contamination, and radiation exposure, the management of radiation exposure damage illness. Then they have one -- no, they have two a year of the advanced for physicians who have already attended the REM course; a much more involved, detailed lecture that lasts about a 5 day stay.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: Then, of course, they have a health physics course. So they have a fair number of courses in the course of a year among all of those. The thing that I talk about most is internal contamination and the approach in trying to deal with radiation that has found its way inside the body, however it did that, through inhalation or ingestion or wound contamination or something like that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Now, you said when you first went there, you didn't have a lot of training in radiation medicine.
DR. GARRETT: Oh, I had not. When I first became staff physician over at ORNL, radiation was -- other than X-rays -- pretty new to me.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, but I bet you had an opportunity to learn a lot while you were there about it, didn't you?
DR. GARRETT: At the Lab, yes I did. I did. I took courses and did a fair amount of training and then, of course, had the issues at work to try to be sure I had some awareness of because what it might have to do with the health of the individual. So, that's where and when I learned most of it.
MR. MCDANIEL: Really, kind of your career there kind of correlated to the industry as far as what was becoming known about radiation and the effects and things such as that as well. Well, let me ask you, did you have any major exposure, radiation exposure issues that you had to deal with that was on site there at the Lab?
DR. GARRETT: There were some incidents where there were unintended -- not releases, but unintended escape of some radiation into, for instance, one was an escape of some material. It always happens on a weekend, of course, and this one did.
MR. MCDANIEL: Of course.
DR. GARRETT: We got into some water that was contained, but it was water that because of a big rain that happened on that weekend, it was a contamination problem for the health physicists and the folks cleaning it up.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: We didn't have any medical issues out of that.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right, right.
DR. GARRETT: There was another when one of the reactor mote areas -- there was some concern about whether or not two or three people had been exposed. It turned out they had not, not clinically significantly.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: I don't remember any serious clinically significant exposures. It was a huge, of course, problem with the health physicists trying to keep everybody badged and doing all the testing of the badging and being sure all the procedures were followed in order to avoid that. But they were very good at it, so we didn't have any serious radiation health issues that I recall at the moment.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure. Well, this has been really interesting to hear about your life as a physician out there at the Lab. Is there anything that I have not asked you that you want to talk about, anything that you think is important?
DR. GARRETT: Oh, there are things that you haven't asked me that I don't want to talk about. [Laughter]
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, I understand that.
DR. GARRETT: No, no, I'm kidding about that. No, I don't think so. It was an interesting and a different kind of medical practice that I enjoyed. It was an interesting life to be in touch with brilliant folks and understand at least some of their work. So it was an interesting place to work and a congenial place to work. As far as I knew there were not any major confrontations of any general nature. Of course, there were occasional personal things, but that's because there were people there.
MR. MCDANIEL: Exactly. [Laughter] That's kind of like I have a friend of mine who is a pastor. He says, "You know, the ministry would be a pretty good job if you didn't have to deal with all those people." [Laughter]
DR. GARRETT: Didn't have to mess with the people, yes.
MR. MCDANIEL: I guess medicine would kind of be the same way, wouldn't it?
DR. GARRETT: Well, it wouldn't be nearly as interesting if you didn't have the people. It would be less interesting if you didn't have the people to work with.
MR. MCDANIEL: Sure, sure.
DR. GARRETT: That's the most interesting part and the most challenging.
MR. MCDANIEL: Oh, I'm sure. So you felt like you made the right -- looking back, you felt like you made the right choice when you decided to leave private practice and go there?
DR. GARRETT: I did. I had regularly time to spend with the family that I would not have had in private practice.
MR. MCDANIEL: Right.
DR. GARRETT: So that was a major plus in generally having the regular hours so that I could plan to do things with family, that in private practice that's much more difficult to and much more interrupted than mine. So, I got to spend some time with my boys when they were doing little league baseball and football and grasshopper football, my daughter when she was doing community competitive swimming. So, I really got to spend some family time that I enjoyed and I'm glad I had, aside from the challenging and the interesting work that I had.
MR. MCDANIEL: Well, thank you sir. I appreciate you taking time to talk with us.
DR. GARRETT: You're welcome.
MR. MCDANIEL: Okay, very good.
[End of Interview]